Page 126 - The Origin of Birds and Flight

124 The Origin of Birds and Flight

The materials used in these wings’ manufacture—piezoelectric materi-
als (which create electrical energy from pressure)—link electrical voltage to
movement. If you bend a piezoelectric material, it produces voltage.
Conversely, if you apply voltage, the material will bend.
Anna-Maria R. McGowan, director of the Morphing Project, says about
the technology in question:
When we look 20 years into the future, we see airplanes that have dis-
tributed self-assessment and repair in real time. . . . To make this tech-
nology possible, you would need to distribute these actuators and sen-
sors throughout the wings. That's similar to how the human body oper-
ates. We have muscles and nerves all over our bodies—so we are aware
of what’s happening to our bodies and we can respond to it in a num-
ber of ways. 3
One method employed in the Morphing Project’s research is the analy-
sis of systems that already exist in nature. From these models, scientists
hope to learn techniques that they can use to develop their own designs.
As McGowan says,
Birds are so much more maneuverable than our airplanes are today.
Birds can hover, they can fly backwards and sideways. And insects—
upside down, loop-de-loop, all sorts of things. We can’t even get close
to that. 4
Achievements in this technique of learning from nature, known as biom-
imetics, have led scientists to imitate the structure of avian bones for air-
plane wings. Birds’ bones are light, strong and porous, with a hollow struc-
ture that admits air. McGowan states that they hope to achieve a similar
structure:
If you can have the strength and light weightiness of these bone-like
structures that I’m talking about, then add in nerve-like sensors and
these flexible actuators, what you’re going to end up with is an extreme-
ly light-weight, very strong, self-sensing, self-actuating structure. 5
All these are ideals that scientists have set out through being inspired by
birds’ wings. If a bird can act as a source of inspiration for a scientist, if it
can serve as a guide for a project, then clearly there is something quite ex-
traordinary in its structure. It is impossible for such a perfect structure to be
the product of unconscious coincidences and random processes. The in-
telligence that scientists seek to imitate and which so amazes them is just
one of the countless examples of the infinite intelligence, knowledge and
creative artistry of Allah.